


Singularities

by TheAwkwardEnthusiast



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One, Transformers: Shattered Glass
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Black Markets, Canon What Fucking Canon?, Canon-Typical Violence, Crime, Drama, It's Another Fucking JazzWave Fic, M/M, Murder, Mutual Pining, Mystery, No War AU, Not Abandoned...Just Revising Some Plot Details, Not Canon Compliant, Ricochet is basically Shattered Glass Jazz, Singularities, Slow Burn, Sticky Sexual Interfacing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-05-19 18:08:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19361953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAwkwardEnthusiast/pseuds/TheAwkwardEnthusiast
Summary: A pessimistic Enforcer from Polyhex.A cryptic host mech with enigmatic Outlier capabilities.And a dangerous singularity that unexpectedly brings them into each other's lives.Together, they'll fight for the right to survive and along the way, they'll discover that the world they live in isn't exactly as perfect as they once believed it to be.





	1. First Encounter

There were hundreds of Cybertronian myths and urban legends revolving around singularities. Each city had their own version, from homicidal twins lurking in the same element, completely unaware of one another’s presence but still hauntingly in tune with the other’s destructive tendencies, to shattered glass replicas from alternate universes that reflected a bot’s deepest desires in physical form.

Polyhex had a few, most of them being nothing more than old stories told to keep younglings in line when words and simple chastisements didn’t cut it, but there were a couple that a few of the residents would desperately try to convince were real. Shadow figures were the ones blamed for murders and tragedies, their elusiveness and horrid aura being easier to accept than the evil that lurked in most bot’s Sparks.

But there were a few bots that never really gave the old tales much thought. Jazz of Polyhex was one of them.

Older generations would call him a nonbeliever, a mech whose occupation forced him to dabble with the societies that dwelled outside the walls of Polyhex and thus rendered him a traitor to the very city that had toiled and suffered so that his Spark could putter into existence. Once or twice a monk from the monastery at the uppermost level of the city would corner him during a routine patrol and chastise him for his many sins, from taking on non-polyhexian lovers to bearing the badge of the organization that used violence to keep the population in check.

Street cops were things of the past now. The great capacity for corruption and greed festering dissention in the roots of the once great police departments and making it easy for the Enforcer Corporation to place a center of operations there, operated by drones, rumored shadow-played officials and the occasional mech. It was an umbrella corporation that had a self-evolving AI heralding all of the nitty gritty details of the corporation, it’s coding so clean and unhackable and with an ethical programing so moral that it was rumored to be the epitome of sentient perfection.

It had no name but bots around the precincts liked to refer to it as Primus, an ironic little jab at the rumored Maker of all things Cybertronian, the god responsible for Cybertron’s very existence.

It couldn’t be swayed with money or promises of grandeur and when it caught even the slightest sniff of corruption, it attacked and rooted any possible problems at the source. Enforcers were undergoing rigorous background checks every second of the day, the system making sure it’s employees followed the strict ethical coding detailed in their daily work packets and never strayed from the overall motto of the corporation: _Regulate the possible and rule out the impossible._

In a city like Polyhex whose history was so deeply rooted in mythology and religion, the Enforcers found nothing but contradiction and conflict and as Cybertron entered and thrived in various golden ages, Polyhex remained nothing more than a dark and dreary corner of an otherwise perfect world.

Jazz had been raised on his city’s impossibilities but when the death of his creators came in the form of a deranged serial killer, the faith he’d had in the mystical had disappeared and he’d gravitated towards the brutal reality that the Enforcer Corporation had advertised. Forsaking everything but the population of his city, he’d trained and toiled and evolved until he bore the black and white markings of the justice system he now believed in and his job revolved around striking down conflict at its source.

He was good at his job. Frighteningly so, some would say. His processor was quick and organized, capable of categorizing and indexing information at a speed that rivaled the fastest archivist in the Iaconian Hall of Records and the speed at which his mind and body were interconnected was uncanny. He became the boogeyman of the underground mobs, his name being used as a warning to the eager but nubile young processors brought into the ranks that warned of a fate worse than death should he manage to catch them doing wrong.

Jazz thrived on that fear, preferring it over violence, but at the end of the day he came home to an empty apartment and opened up a pack of high grade like any other bot, watching soap operas and racing until his optics couldn’t stop shuttering and internal messages flooded his HUD and warned him it was time to recharge.

It was an exciting life, full of danger and more than enough car chases to satisfy even the most thrill-seeking among the ranks. But excitement itself couldn’t mask the monotony of routine and Jazz slowly found himself growing weary of the repetitive nature of his job. During his routine debriefments with Primus in which he was suspended offline in a bacta tank with wires and tubes connecting him to the monitor that housed but a small fraction of the heralder, he let these feelings be known and the AI analyzed and observed and questioned everything with an uncanny sense of patience and faux understanding.

“What do you believe contributes to these feelings?” The soft mechanical voice asked, wrapping around Jazz’s subconscious mind and probing at every electrical impulse that popped up.

“Greed.” Jazz answered almost immediately. “I’m...unable to be happy with what I have.”

A moment of silence, then, “And what do you have?”

Jazz took a moment to ponder. “I have...a home. A job. My Spark is strong and healthy. I have everything I need.”

“If you believe you have everything necessary for survival, then why are you unhappy?”

“I’m not unhappy.”

“Your acetine levels beg to differ,” Primus answered. “A normal healthy bot produces around 2.5 decels of acetine in their emotional processing unit every five orns. However, based off my readings, you only produced 1.2 decels.”

Jazz felt his Spark contract at the words, memories of bots calling him ‘defective’, ‘freak’ and a ‘traitor’ swarming through his mind like a swarm of scraplets.

Primus picked up on these feelings and pulled them forward, following the tiny silver tendrils that connected emotion and memory until it was able to pull up the memory files depicting those particular moments and replaying them for both of them to see.

The first one was of a fellow Enforcer, fired four decaorns ago after being found guilty of using interfacing as a torture tactic of a mafia captive, who constantly found Jazz’s successful record to be something to hate and jeer at. He’d cornered Jazz in a corner one night-cycle, gold optics bright and furious and mouth stinking of Visco as he leaned in for all he was worth.

_“No mech’s perfect as you are. Only that slaggin’ machine’s perfec’ and if you’re like that, then you’re no mech at all. You’re a defective little--”_

Primus turned off the playback before any more of the mech’s hostilities could be uttered and Jazz grimaced at the foul taste those words left on his glossa. He’d been hesitant to react back then, nulled by the possibility of punishment and demotion from the job he’d considered himself blessed for obtaining. But when he’d realized that Primus only punished criminal activity, he’d grown resentful for having remained silent and let the mech meander down the alley without so much as a punch in the face.

They went through the other two video feeds together, watching as a criminal called him a freak as he lay bleeding and injured beneath Jazz’s feet and as a monk chastised him when he’d been caught fooling around with a mech from Praxus on the middle levels of the city during his days off.

Primus studied and analyzed his reactions and feelings, working at a speed that Jazz’s processor couldn’t possibly hope of mimicking, and came to a single and startlingly simple conclusion.

“You fear loneliness,” it said.

Jazz would have frowned if he could. “I’m not afraid of being alone,” he replied, confused how the conclusion fit with the initial inquiries.

“Your job forces you to live a life of uncertainties,” Primus said softly. “Every job is different, every perpetrator’s motivations unclear. You do not know if you will survive or if you will offline in the line of duty. It excites you. But when you survive and arrive to see your empty apartment, you realize that the only one reveling in these emotions is you and no one else.” A pause. “If you live, no one celebrates. If you die, no one will mourn you.”

“My comrades will!” Jazz argued futilely.

“A courtesy,” Primus clarified. “But I calculate none will be emotionally impacted by the loss.”

Jazz was silent, mulling over the implications of the analysis and growing disillusioned by the deduction with each passing nanoklik. With a small internal sigh, the mech surrendered himself to inference and looked to the brightness within his mind that represented the entity that’d brought so much stability to his once-hectic life.

“What do I do?”

Primus sent waves of warm reassurance over their connection. “That is an answer I cannot provide.” Its voice sounded garbled and far-away, like a radio connection going bad. “But I’m afraid that our time together had come to an end. Connection terminating in three, two—”

“One.”

Jazz’s visor flashed online, flaring bright white in surprise and astonishment. The ventilation tube connected to his mouth was the only thing that prevented the liquid around him from surging into his tanks and he flailed around for a second, grounding himself only when he saw the familiar faces of the medical bots on the other side of the glass encasing him. Their emotionless blue optics stared up at him, waiting.

Shuttering his optics, the black and white mech pressed his hands forward and pressed his palms against the glass in silent approval. With a loud hiss and vibrating thrum, the liquid was quickly flushed out of the tube and Jazz was left suspended only by tubes and wires, allowing the bots ample time to check his vitals, processing power and coherence before disconnecting him and guiding him towards the drying unit allocated in the adjacent washracks.

Jazz went through the motions of cleaning himself up, mind blank and Spark unsteady, and when he was finally able to go back to the upper levels of the precinct, his steps seemed almost as heavy and hollow as the rest of his frame. The smiling faces around him held little warmth and he grimaced when the receptionists grinned at him over their tables, waiting for the flirty remarks and their witty repertoire teetering on the tips of their glossas.

He ignored them and as he watched, they simply shrugged and went back to their work.

They didn’t care.

He fell in behind his desk with a heavy exvent and glanced at the pile of datapads on the edge of his workspace, slightly annoyed that the pile seemed to have grown over the course of the morning. A part of his surmised that a couple of his missions partners had left the paperwork up to him and the prospect of finishing up someone else’s half-aft reports made him antsy but he knew that wallowing in his misery would do him little good so he got to it.

He took out his favorite stylus from his subspace and got to work.

Fortunately (or not), he didn’t get many reports done before his internal comm came to life and he was being called into the field.

_Perp in interrogation room 1. Come prepared.  
_

Jazz felt a bit of warmth seep back into his struts as he rose from his desk and made his way through the grey and white hallways towards the interrogation suite. Interrogations were his forte and though time and demand had him situated mostly in the field, he’d always been the bot even the most experienced interrogators turned to when times turned desperate. It was a gift of his to combine affability with danger, able to switch between the two when the time called for it without losing himself to the twisted games and tricks that he liked to play.

Scanning his ID card at the large reinforced door that separated the rest of the facility from the suite, the door slid open and he slipped inside to be greeted by the familiar maze of silver hallways and floors. Doors lined each side, white letters labeling their contents in neat calligraphy.

Interrogation room one was but a few steps away and he stepped inside to see a few interrogators loitering around in the antechamber, arms crossed over their chestplates and faces firmly set into stern frowns of anger, frustration and unease.

Jazz closed the door behind him quietly and grinned, one hand resting on his hip. “Trouble, officers?” His visor flickered as he focused on the one-way glass on the opposite end of the room, tinted to hide the perpetrator in the room from everyone’s view. The cameras were all turned off, smoothly operating security feeds and humming monitor screens an ominous shade of black. The only light source in the room were the mech’s optics and Jazz felt every last drop of humor evaprote from his frame. He traced the frames of each mech, focusing on the only one whose name he bothered remembering.

“What’s the situation Barricade?” He asked, dropping an octave now that comicality wasn’t on the list of options.  “Give it to me straight.”

Barricade growled, shifting his weight with an air of unease. “We’ve got an outlier in there,” he hissed, red optics flickering to the tightly shut door that led to the adjacent interrogation room. “And not the fun kind that love showing off how many laps they can run around a track or how they can teleport from room to room. We’ve got a serious one...one that knows how to use his abilities pretty slaggin’ well.”

Jazz’s optic ridges furrowed. “Got a file on this mech?”

Barricade shook his head. “The mech’s a main suspect in a string of killings that’ve been taking place in up-scale bars around the city. Praxus’ got a similar issue but their suspect went off the grid and winded up dead, leaving everything on our doorstep.” He glanced down at a powered down datapad in his hands. “We had a preliminary profile sketched up but once we arrested the mech, it turned out everything was completely wrong.”

Barricade struggled to keep himself from chucking the pad against a wall. “We didn’t even get the color of hid fraggin’ optics right.”

Jazz held out a hand. “Gimme it.”

The mech frowned. “Why?”

“Rule of thumb’s that every profile’s got at least 10% of the details correct, even when the majority turns out to be incorrect. So lemme have it.”

After a moment of hesitation and uneasy glances with the other mechs in the room, Barricade finally handed over the datapad. Jazz tucked it under his arm and nodded once. “Okay,” he said, “let’s see what we’ve got here.”

He made his way towards the door, scanning his ID card once more before stepping back to allow the door to part. A flood of light sweeps in, momentarily blinding everyone without an adaptive visor, and Jazz stepped over the threshold, adopting his usual easy-going façade in the blink of an optic.

The doors shut tight behind him with a hiss and Jazz glanced down at his datapad before looking up at the mech strapped down in place on one side of the tiny table that adorned the room. Jazz’s smile froze in place for a nanoklik as he took in the chains and shackles but when his gaze roved over the dark blue plating, the peeking glimpses of taut cabling, he felt his smile widen a fraction of an inch with each passing klik. He was disappointed to find that the mech’s face was hidden behind a white faceplate and a flaring scarlet visor but a tiny part of him reminded that it added a little bit of thrill to the operation because a mech without a face was so much more difficult to read.

It was a challenge and one that he welcomed with open arms.

“Don’t get up,” Jazz said softly, lifting a placating hand as he took a seat in the chair opposite of the mech. At that distance, it was easy to feel the other bot’s EM field, a graveyard void of the usual warmth and activity of a normal bot’s; there was no surprise, no anger, no emotion to tether Jazz to what could possibly be driving the mech’s thinking. It was cold, like a frigid whisper of the Rust Sea’s breezes when the midorn rolled around.

Completely devoid of life.

It reminded him a bit of Primus.

Jazz carefully concealed his surprise from his own EM field and allowed it to mesh with the edges of the other mechs, carefully poking and prodding at the otherwise static field.

“I like to start things off cordially,” Jazz said, still smiling. “So, whaddya say we start with designations, yeah? The name’s Jazz.”

The other mech was silent.

“Not the talkative type, are you?”

Silence reigned.

Sighing, Jazz powered on the datapad and looked at the information displayed, scrolling through the information until he reached what he was looking for. He tapped a finger on the screen, pretending to mull things over. “Hm. Says here your name’s Soundblaster.” He craned his neck and peeked under the table, taking in the mech’s boxy build with subtle appreciation. “But something tells me that’s not your real designation, is it.”

“Negative.”

The monotone voice broke through the silence like a bullet; simple and straight forward, hitting it’s intended target with startling accuracy. Jazz felt the words down to his very struts and he momentarily stumbled over his words, brushing his mistake aside with a grin and wave of his hand.

“Quite the harmonics you’ve got there, big guy.”

“Affirmative.” Each syllable seemed to resonate throughout the room and Jazz took a moment to look through his subsystems, scanning to see if the mech had somehow managed to slip any viruses in without him noticing. System scans immediately came back negative and Jazz relaxed a little, breaking optic contact to read through the file once more.

His optics narrowed slightly as a line of text caught his attention and he silently cursed Barricade and the others’ ineptitude.

“Telepath.” Jazz muttered, addressing the elephant in the room that nobody had even bothered warning him about. Slowly, methodically, he lifted his gaze to stare at that red visor and his own flashed a deep blue hue of understanding. “You’re a telepath.”

The shackles and chains, littered with scrambling nodes, clanked together as the mech shifted, the tight clamps limiting his movements so that he could only manage leaning forward a couple inches over the table. But it was enough to bring them into closer proximity to one another and the temperature in the room rose a couple scant degrees.

“Host mech.”

The foreign word caught Jazz off guard but his history lectures during his orns at the training academy rolled through his mind and he plucked the few that held the eerily familiar words in their transcript. It was a basic criminology lecture, one that often delved into psychology and biology when it suited the professor’s fancy.

Leaning forward, Jazz crossed his arms across the cold surface of the table and grimaced. “Host mechs are extinct.”

“Negative. Host mechs, merely in hiding.”

“So there’s more than one of you?” Jazz asked, surprised the mech was offering so much information without putting up much of a fight.

The mech nodded once.

Jazz made a mental note and filed it away for future investigation. “Interesting. Now, let’s get to the bottom of why you’re here.” He tilted his helm to one side, clasped hands rising to press against his lower lip. “About why you’re the head suspect in a murder spree that’s got more than a few bots scratching their heads.”

The mech’s visor flashed. “Soundwave, faultless.”

_Gotcha._

“Soundwave.” Jazz breathed, rolling the name across his tongue as if it were the finest Energon goodie this side of Cybertron. “I like it. Got a kick to it."

The telepath’s engine gave a small rev of displeasure. “Patronizing syntax, unappreciated.”

Jazz let out a huff. “I’m just keeping it real, Sounders.” He leaned back in his chair, hands loosely gripping the edge of the table. “I was sent here to learn as much as I can about you, to play the whole good cop-bad cop routine until you crack and confess.”

“I can either be your friend or your worst enemy. It’s up to you and I suggest you choose wisely.”

Soundwave huffed, the voice modulation making it sound like a radio struggling to get in tune. “Friendship, unattainable. Jazz, already an enemy.”

The air around them rose up a couple degrees and an eerily familiar prickling crept up Jazz’s neck, sending a shiver down his spinal strut. But before he could even open his mouth to ask another question, the entire room violently began to shake and Jazz was thrown out of his chair and onto the cold hard floor with a thud that echoed off the walls.

His entire frame went numb, limbs heavy like lead weights and it was an effort to even lift his head up. But his optics were working just fine and they widened behind his visor as they watched the mech rise to his feet, the chains snapping off his frame like rust sticks in a youngling’s hand. The broken shackles clattered noisily to the floor and Jazz’s battle routines flared to life, sending strong pulses of energy to his limbs that allowed him to lift his upper body with his elbows but his legs lay useless and twitching behind him.

Strong blue hands grabbed one of his arms and forced him onto his back and Jazz could only watch as the telepath loomed over him, EM filed wound tight around him and visor burning bright as an ember.

There was only a nanoklik of hesitation lingering between them before Soundwave gripped Jazz’s helm between his hands and pressed their foreheads together.

Time stopped.

There was no other explanation.

Jazz’s Spark had been beating rapidly in his chest, each pulse thundering inside of his helm like a horde of stampeding turbo-oxen, and then suddenly it wasn’t. He couldn’t hear or feel his ventilations, the hum of his systems, the dead weight of his limbs...nothing.

And then suddenly, time sped up and he could feel everything.

But it’s all the wrong things.

Unlike his connection with Primus, the connection with Soundwave isn’t slow and steady, allowing his processor to view each image and emotion before delving into others like a gentle flowing river. No, this is a deluge, a broken dam that sweeps everything in its torrent and forsakes everything unable to stand against it’s power.

There’s a kaleidoscope of colors and tastes and smells.

He sees the dark sordid colors of the underworld, smells the oxidization and the rust that clings to the walls and floors, tainting the vibrant colors of its inhabitants until they’re but discolored shells of their former selves. He sees them blur together, as if he’s running past them, and suddenly he can feel someone’s hot exvents on the back of his neck and the unmistakable pin-prickle of sharp fingers on his arms, caressing and tapping before digging in with a ferocity that takes Jazz’s breath away.

He’s thrown forwards as he struggled to make a turn, landing headfirst in a pile of scrap and debris that mildly cushions his fall. His visor’s fritzing, his vocalizer’s raw and when he struggled to ground himself, all he could feel and smell was his own confusion.

None of this is real, he kept repeating in his mind. None of this is slagging real.

It’s shadowplay, telepathy, mind-control, something! It’s all just images and invasions of his nueronet, a virus that’s throwing his sensors into oblivion.

Suddenly there’s that same hand wrapping around his neck and hoisting him up out of the trash and into the air, cutting off his ventilations and slowly crushing his voicebox into nonexistence. He forced his visor into a hard reboot and when it finally managed to flicker into coherence, he’s met with a vision that makes the Energon in his fuel lines grow cold.

His struggles ceased, hands freezing around the wrist of his attacker.

It...was _him_.

It wasn’t exactly like staring at his reflection in a mirror but it was damn close. The other mech’s helm and frame shape are identical to his, right down to the audio horns on either side of his helm and the protruding chassis that often was the butt of jokes whispered behind his back. But as Jazz watched, and his optics shuttered to adjust, it soon became apparent that those were only passing similarities.

The other mech was taller, with a white and red color scheme, and he had sharper angles to his features; his smile was feral, dentae sharp and pointy as slowly gnawed at his lip in anticipation. His visor was a deep orange, nothing more than a sharp curved piece of glass that looked like it itself could be a weapon and it’s clear enough to showcase a pair of dazzling red optics that glimmer with an of superior smugness. But their shape is wrong; unlike his wide ones, the other mech’s were narrowed into permanent slits and they flared in tune the erratic EM field of his that’s currently smothering Jazz’s own.

The hand around his throat tightened but dropped enough that Jazz’s feet touch the floor and though he was confused, shaken and slightly perturbed, he kept his expression blank as the other mech stepped towards him and all but pinned him against the wall behind him. He let out a grunt as his helm collided against the rusted alloy and the sharp-toothed grin that spread over Jazz’s reflection’s lips was enough to make the Enforcer’s tanks churn with uncertainty.

“You’re not Soundwave.” It said and Jazz grimaced at the easy-going tone of the mech’s voice.

“I’m not.” Jazz responded, voice level. He was careful to keep his attention focused on the mech’s other hand, alternating between the predatory smirk and the clenched fist and anticipating an attack from either.

It never came. Instead, the fist unclenched and a dark pointed finger reached up to trace the seam beneath his optic, following the smooth line across his cheek to where it met the corner of his mouth. A look of what Jazz could only describe to be sadistic awe crossed the mech’s features as his fingers traced the curve of Jazz’s lips, alternating between the blunt pads of fingers and the sharp pointed tips of claws.

That eerily familiar face leaned in a little closer, visor flaring bright orange as the smirk turned upside down for a brief startling moment.

“You smell like him,” Jazz’s reflection said, noseplate wrinkling slightly. “You’re not supposed to smell like him.”

Jazz grimaced, twisting his helm to dislodge the fingers currently trying to delve into his mouth. “I don’t even know the mech,” he hissed, patience waning. “You’ve got the wrong bot.”

A moment of silence, and then that orange visor brightened until it was burning a vivid white. “You’re lying...” the other mech said, voice adopting a melodic sing-song tune. “I can smell his wax on your plating; on your hands, your chassis, your _neck_...” As if to solidify his point, the mech leaned forward and pressed his noseplate to the sparse inch of intakes that were not covered by his own hand.

Jazz resisted the urge to shudder, fighting back against the tingles in his processor and the tiny voice in his mind that dared say the sensations felt good.

Leaning back, his reflection’s engine let out a small rev of displeasure. “You better not be taking what’s mine.”

Jazz would have scoffed if he could. But the thinly veiled threat lingering beneath those words was enough to force him back to using the neutral façade he’d adopted at the beginning of their encounter. His mind was reeling, processor struggling to both find a way to escape and make sense of the inexplicability standing in front of him.

Long repressed memories of his first-frame experiences surged to the forefront, shattering the careful seal he’d placed on them since the death of his creators, and suddenly all he can hear is the soft baritone of the monk responsible for his early dive Polyhexian tradition. The intricate glyphs in datapads, the hums and songs in ancient dialects, the paintings on the walls of the monestary...

_“Singularities.” The monk had said, voice solemn. “You must be extremely careful of these, young one.”_

_“Why?”_

_“Inevitability.” The mech replied. “Meetings with our shattered glass selves is an inevitable prospect of this life. Sooner or later, you’ll meet them and nothing will be able to protect you from them.”  
_

_“Are they evil?”_

_“Of course not. Nothing in this world is inherently evil. But a collection of bad experiences, stifled reminiscences, and unfulfilled longings can make for a shattered glass version capable of great evil. They absorb the results of actions not taken, after all. For every good experience you revel in, they wallow in the consequences of the bad ones. It’s a circuit, where energy can only be diverted in two directions, following a single set path...”_

Jazz’s helm slammed into the wall again, momentarily dazing him and it took him a moment to realize that the orange visored mech was asking him something. Shuttering his optics, he tried to focus on the words being formed by the other mech’s lips.

“—where is he?”

Jazz coughed as the grip around his neck tightened. “Who?"

“Soundwave!” The other mech hissed, his own patience long and gone. “Where is he?!”

The resemblance between them was uncanny. Jazz knew the mech opposite him wasn’t a clone, and though his realistic mindset refused to accept the religious gibbersh of singularities and shattered glasses, he knew without a doubt that the mech standing before him was _him_.

Was this how all the criminals felt when he apprehended them? Using fears and old myths revolving around his name to tamper them into submission?

Those that Jazz killed...was that same growl the last thing they heard? That disparage the last thing their minds registered before he put a bullet in between their optics?

“Who’s asking?” Jazz choked out, desperate to get some information before the other mech completely shattered his intakes.

With a shriek of twisting metal and guttural anger, Jazz was thrown sideways once more and when he felt his body connect with the floor, his dormant battleroutines jumpstarted to life and he used his momentum to roll to the side and jump to his feet.

The flash of a vibroblade heading straight for his chassis was the first thing he saw as an uninhibited mech and he neatly dodged the clumsy attack, deftly spinning to the side before bringing down his fist against the exposed elbow joint of his attacker.

The metal broke beneath his punch and an eerily familiar howl echoed through the vacant alley. But that wasn’t enough to hinder the orange and white mech at all.

Jazz felt the air rush out of him as that same arm swung in a backwards arc and caught him right on the chin, his dentae biting into his glossa hard enough to make a few trickles of Energon spurt out from between his lips. He stumbled backwards, one hand nursing his aching lower face and barely had enough time to register that the vibroblade was being aimed at his lower torso. He tried to spin out of the other bot’s range of attack but he was too slow and the glowing red blade nicked a couple tension cables and with a small hiss, drops of pink vital fluids splattered onto the dirty floor.

Jazz ignored the pain, wiping his mouth and stepping back far enough so that the two of them were now circling each other around the tiny alley, movements hauntingly in sync.

“My name’s unimportant.” The orange visored mech jeered, making a show of licking the edges of the vibroblade and paying no heed to the welts that popped up on the tip of his glossa. “Some call me their worst nightmare, a testament to their sins.” A pause and then a chuckle. “But those are just dramatic fools hoping to leave a verbal legacy at the end of their miserable lives. I’m nothing special really and I don’t make a habit of revealing my name.”

Jazz shivered involuntarily when the mech rescinded his orange visor and stared at him with those burning red optics, obscenely roving over his frame before linking gazes with him. “But for you, I’m willing to make an exception.”

He took a few steps forward and Jazz felt a spasm of fear erupt in his chassis when he realized that he _couldn’t move_.

Red optics were now separated by mere centimeters from deep blue, and Jazz knew that if anybody took a picture of them, here, in this dark dimly lit alleyway littered with stains of Energon and vital fluids, they’d no doubt pass for twins.

Jazz’s reflection leaned forwards, smiling as he pressed his lips to a sensitive audio horn. “The name’s Jazz...but you can call me Ricochet.”

A hand reached up between them, sharp fingertips glinting in the dim light, and they traced the Enforcer engravings on his arm, caressing them with a softness that was unbecoming of a mech that had been adamant on killing him just seconds before. But then they came to the sigil plastered on his chassis and they stopped, trembling slightly for a moment before a warm palm placed itself over it.

Red optics narrowed.

“Polyhex.” Ricochet said, dusting off the grime and dirt so he could properly read the glyphs beneath the Enforcer symbol. “Interesting.”

Jazz felt his Sparkbeat quicken and Ricochet grinned as he felt it.

The Enforcer wasn’t so easily cowed, however. “You’ll never make it to the precinct alive.”

Ricochet’s grin faltered but managed to still itself into a small half-smile. “Is that a threat?”

“A promise.”

The red opticed mech chuckled, clearly amused.

Jazz grimaced, a red-hot wire of hatred burning deep in the dark recesses of his Spark. It burned in his like a roaring fire, sparking the dormant embers deep inside his frame until he was all but bursting with the desire to hunt, track and kill.

But he hadn’t even growled another warning before the world shifted and Jazz’s face slammed into something cold and solid. Reflexively his helm snapped back and his visor rebooted itself upon recognizing the surface of the interrogation table, a broken datapad now lying in pieces across the silver surface.

The air smelled clean and sterile, no oxidization or dampness hampering it and Jazz swallowed roughly upon notcing a soft sweetness underlying the crude scents. It was unmistakably foreign to the room he knew like the back of his hand and he hated how it made his Spark turn and his tanks roll in anticipation.

Jazz winced as the intercom suddenly whined to life, blinking drearily as he turned to face the speaker in the corner of the interrogation room.

“Jazz!” Barricade’s voice hissed, solidifying the realization that Jazz was indeed in Polyhex, in interrogation room 1 and most definitely not fighting his deranged twin in some backwater alley in the underworld. “Respond! Are you alright?”

The sound grated on Jazz’s audials and he waved a hand at the intercom. “I’m fine!” He hissed, turning to fix the opaque window in the room with an annoyed grimace. “Keep it down.”

Barricade hesitated. “You offlined for a second there.”

Just a second? Jazz frowned, turning around to stare at Soundwave who was still sitting in the chair across from him, the quintessence of fortitude.

His red visor flashed once with understanding and Jazz’s grimace deepened as he took in the brunt reality of the situation.

He’d been played like a fragging cygtar at Maccadam’s during blues’ nights.

“What the hell was that?” He said, voice hard and cold. Sweeping aside the bits of datapad, Jazz slammed his hands on the table, rattling the thin furniture. “You got an answer, big mech?”

Soundwave didn’t even flinch. And when he spoke, his voice was calm and collected. “Jazz, already knows.”

“Enough with the cryptic one-liners,” Jazz said, a tinge of exasperation seeping into his tone. He dug a finger into the surface, punctuating every one of his words. “Slag, just answer the damn question.”

The telepath tilted his helm to one side. “Jazz, scared.”

It wasn’t even a question.

Jazz was a prideful mech but he wasn’t the kind who thought fear and panic were signs of weakness. “Damn right I am. I ain’t got a clue what’s goin’ on. So if you’ve got answers, I ain’t exactly opposed to hear them.”

Soundwave chuckled. Or at least, Jazz assumed it was a chuckle. His shoulders, despite the restraints and shackles, rose and fell and his frame shook in tune with the warbles of static that escaped the mech’s vocalizer.

Jazz simply stared.

When he was done, Soundwave murmured, “Jazz, the solution.”

“Solution?”

Soundwave nodded once. “Soundwave, faultless. Soundwave, requires Jazz’s assistance.”

Jazz gaped for a moment before shaking his helm vehemently. “Wait, wait, wait.” He leaned back in his chair, arms crossing in front of him. “Back up. I’m not following here. You’re here because you’re a primary suspect in a murder spree. We’ve never met and I’m damn sure the Enforcer Corporation isn’t handing out their officer’s profiles like trading cards to be collected.”

Jazz scoffed. “So, tell me why the slag you’re acting like you’ve been lying in wait until our paths crossed?” He waited for a moment, then winced and face palmed. “Wait...please don’t tell me you’re one of those monks from the monastery.”

Soundwave shook his helm and Jazz let out a sigh of relief.

“Soundwave, aware of singularities.”

The word made Jazz freeze and he slowly glanced up to fix the telepath with a stern glare. “What’d you say?”

“Singularities.” Soundwave intoned. “Presence, unwarranted. Existence, proven.”

“Those are nothing more than myths and old-carrier tales to keep younglings in check.”

“Negative.”

Jazz’s engine revved in warning. “Careful mech, you’re overstepping your boundaries.”

Soundwave revved right back. “Jazz, in denial.”

The black and white mech glared at the telepath for a few moments before throwing his hands up in the air in mock surrender. “We’re done.” He hissed, rising to his feet.

Soundwave’s visor flared white in confusion before darkening to a deep vermillion. “Turning away from conflict, unwise.”

Jazz growled, “there is no fragging conflict here. Look, I get that you’re afraid but your choices led you to this place and I’m not about to bail you out because of some coincidental mumbo jumbo you believe in.” He turned to face the opaque window and jerked his chin towards the telepath, arms crossing over his chest. “’Cade? Take him into confinement.”

The telecom crackled once. “Right away.”

The door to the antechamber slid open and Soundwave tensed as the three mechs entered the room, two standing on either side while Barricade loitered behind him. Together they unhooked the shackles from where they were bolted to the floor and spread out with the chains in hand, urging the dark blue mech to rise to his feet.

Soundwave hissed static at them when they pulled too hard but he complied nonetheless, casting threatening glances at the mechs handling him. He towered over them and Jazz tensed momentarily upon noticing the height difference between them but he forced himself to relax, unwilling to show any sign of weakness in front of the telepath.

Soundwave turned to look at Jazz as he was herded out the door, red visor flickering. “Jazz, cannot run away.”

Jazz ignored him, lips pursing tightly into a thin fine line as he turned his helm to face the opposite direction.

Eventually the three Enforcers managed to shut the telepath up and shipped him out of the interrogation room, leaving Jazz standing stiff and still in the middle of the empty interrogation room. His optics glanced to the floor beside him, the exact spot where he’d been pinned down by Soundwave before being thrown into that senseless artificial memory influx.

He knelt beside it, fingers roving over the smooth surface. There were no imperfections. No white or blue paint transfers or dents to indicate two mechs had fallen and rolled around it in a one-sided struggle.

Curious, he gave a small sniff of the air and he found it vacant of any of that sweetness that Soundwave had carried.

Huh. (He squashed down the bit that said he was disappointed in the fact, deleting the treacherous line of code).

A hand reached up to caress his intakes, flittering over the taut neck cables in an effort to see if there was any damage on the thin hawsers. Of course, there was none and Jazz let out a ventilation he didn’t even realize he’d been holding in, feeling stupid and inane for even pondering the possibility.

His let his arms fall to his side and not even a nanosecond after, a sharp almost-blinding pain shot up through his left arm and he hissed, right hand reflexively cupping the throbbing appendage.

“What the frag?”

He took a seat in the chair in front of him and observed his arm, carefully supporting it with his free hand as he twisted his shoulder in an attempt to locate the source of the pain.

He found it almost immediately and he felt a pit fall in his vitals.

It was his elbow. It was dented, one of the rotators sticking out just enough that they pulled unnaturally on one of the wires surrounding it. Jazz tried to flex his arm and the pain returned and he bit his lip to stifle the gasp of pain that threatened to escape him.

Slowly, he clenched his right hand and hovered it over the oddly shaped dents, reassuring himself it was nothing more than his imagination. But when the knuckles of his right hand melded perfectly over the dents, he knew that he wasn’t fooling anybody from himself.

Because the injury was identical to the one he’d managed to land on the odd mech in his memory influx, the one who looked so much like him, with that same hunger lingering in his red optics, framed by that oddly shaped orange visor.

Jazz was slowly becoming convinced that he was going insane.

Because it couldn’t be true.

Barricade had said he’d offlined for a second, _a second_ , and he was sure they others would have intervened if he’d all of a sudden begun to hit himself. No, this was probably an old injury gone bad.

He’d go see Primus first thing the next orn, demanding to have his debriefment period moved up, and it’d slide into his mind and pick out whatever virus Soundwave had thrown in there, purifying him and reminding him that everything was okay.

Jazz swallowed roughly as an involuntarily wave of nausea swept through him at the thought of something else in his processor, sifting through his coding and memories, deleting and implementing.

He shook his helm. Dammit, he’d slagged up; let a perp get into his head and get the better of him. A hand came up to rub his face and he let out a frustrated groan.

“Get yourself together.” He harshly whispered at himself, rising to his feet. “You can’t afford to fall apart.”

The words echoed ominously around the empty room and Jazz suddenly felt unusually small. Taking a deep invent, pushed the chair in against the table and made his way out of the room and into antechamber. There, he headed for the main cameras and plugged into the port utilizing his wrist port, downloading a compressed file of all the footage before wiping all traces of the download and shutting off the equipment per regulation.

He didn’t look back.


	2. Perplexities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Perhaps this is what it's like when worlds finally collide...

“Order. I demand order.”

Jazz glanced around at his fellow Enforcers, lips pursed as they ignored the command and continued to scream and yell at the monitor screen at the forefront of the room, fingers pointed and optics glowing bright in rage. A few select mechs were standing quietly up at the front, faced forward and backs straight, the same blue optics listless in every face as they stared into the distance.

Even from this distance, Jazz could see the tiny blue dot embedded in their right temple, shining the calm color of azure serenity and occasionally shining red when a mech jostled them without their consent. But they didn’t turn to look or raise a finger, not once, because no order had been issued for them to do so.

They were drones, after all. Complex artificial intelligence systems, less advanced than Primus but certainly more methodical than the average mech, housed in the husks of fallen mechs who’d signed over the rights of their frames to the very organization they’d died for. It was a macabre arrangement and almost none of the few fully autonomous mechs were in favor of such a practice. But they’d said anything apart from a few growls when said bots wandered into a crime scene and took over the reins of investigations or a couple harsh words spoken between friends in bars after work.

Until now, that is.

The orn had begun normally, with all mechs sent into the room for debriefing on their missions and the status of the organization’s holding over the city. A monotone report forecast a city still gripped by poverty and disease, but crime rates had been steadily decreased over the past vorn and life expectancy had risen a scant couple of quartexes for the newest sparked citizens. The value of the Polyhexian shanix had gone up a few ects and the trade port had been reopened once more, freeing up another area of commerce that could potentially offer the city the boost it needed to get back on its feet.

Primus had said security there would be paramount to its continued success, showcasing diagrams and charts that back up its words on the monitor screen before promptly turning it off and brightening the dim lights in the room.

A moment of silence griped the atmosphere and a few bots perked up, wondering if this was one of those moments where Primus would make a physical appearance, but before any curiosities could be sated, the room’s door had opened and in marched the six bots currently heralding all of the occupant’s hate and disgruntlement, plating shiny and new, completely void of EM fields or animated light in their optics.

Only the little blue dot embedded in their temple offered any sign of life and one look at them had erupted the room into chaos.

Jazz remained quiet among the fray, arms crossed as he leaned back in his chair and stared at the drones with narrowed optics. He noticed the faceplates of an old acquaintance that’d died in a bombing a few orns ago, handsome faceplates lacking the smile and cheer the mech had always radiated. It made Jazz uneasy but he hadn’t been particularly close to the bot so the experience wasn’t as unnerving as it normally would have been.

But still...

He could see why his fellow Enforcers were blowing their gaskets out of their exhaust ports. Beside him, Barricade’s hands were clasped tightly on the table’s surface and his engine emitted a low growl that made the very air around him tremble. Jazz scanned the drones once more and he caught sight of his partner’s distress; a small lithe mech that had gone by the name Adeon. He’d been Barricade’s partner for the first portion of his career, acting as a mentor and occasional berthmate, but he’d been gunned down in a shootout with a gang some time ago.

Barricade apparently hadn’t known about his acquiescence to donate his frame to one of the corporation’s shadier operations.

A sharp whine sounded through the air, shrill and painful, forcing all the mechs in the room to curl into themselves with dentae gritted forcefully and their hands pressed against their audioreceptors.

One, two, three nanoseconds passed before the sound let up and the monitor screen flickered back to life once silence reigned. The familiar blue hue of Primus’ aura flooded the room and the sound of rasping metal sounded as bots righted themselves and found their seats once more.

Jazz, wincing from the residual feedback of such a noise on his sensitive audials, merely shifted in his seat.

“Thank you.” Primus’ voice intoned, a bit warmth projected into its tone. “Your cooperation is appreciated.”

Lights dimming, the drones dipped their helms in a minute greeting, and the LED display on their temples glowed a warmer blue as they each attempted to smile.

“It is understood that the introduction of our latest drone models was done rather haphazardly, with little to no regard for any of your personal inflections, and the sincerest of apologies is extended on the corporations’ behalf.” A pause, then, “However, adaptability is one of an Enforcers’ most admirable traits and it is expected that each and every one of you overcomes your discomforts and adapts to the situation.”

A hand rose in the air somewhere to the left side of the room and all optics turned to face the mech it belonged to.

The monitor screen glowed brightly. “Lieutenant Ajax. What is your query?”

Green optics narrowed, the mech in question rose to his feet and pointed a finger at the drones situated in the front. His lower lip was quivering even though twisted in the start of a snarl, armor plating flared in confrontation. “I lost a youngling to an active shooter because of a drone. Case number 4567a. A drone’s lack of empathy led to a misbalance during negotiations and the shooter shot himself and a youngling before the situation was able to be contained.” He shook his helm, “are you expecting us to welcome these bots when they have little to no capability of operating under complicated parameters because of an obvious lack of moral coding?”

A murmur of approval rippled through the crowd.

Primus was quiet, screen flickering as it thought and analyzed the best way of responding, but it eventually came to an answer. “No, Lieutenant. I am not expecting you to accept them. That would require imposing a will upon you that is not your own and that is not a part of my ethical programming. However, the number of recruits has been dwindling in the past vorns and as a result, the number of trained personnel guarding the streets of the cities has been spread thin. Whatever you feel for these drones, they are a necessary addition.”

“But didn’t your recent report state that the crime rate has been at the lowest point it’s ever been?”

“Yes, but a drop in the crime rate is nothing more than a statistic. Crime is no longer widespread but it has become concentrated in several areas of Polyhex, many of them high risk locations.”

In the span of an optic blink, the screen changed to show a map of the city, all three levels of it, and red dots were superimposed to highlight Primus’ words. Sure enough, the red hue that had once dominated the same image was absent but clusters of dots surrounded the middle and lower levels, right where most medical facilities, housing projects and youngling related areas such as schools and recreation centers were situated.

Jazz knew the numbers were right without even asking. One of the high-risk areas was his particular precinct and the recreational center there had become a hot spot where mechs and younglings met to trade various inhalants and narcotics. More than once he’d brought in a spitting youngling and forced them to sit down with a psychologist, never letting them leave until they, at the very least, understood where their newfound afflictions would lead them in life.

Most listened.

But there were a few that Jazz found himself reuniting on opposite ends of the shooting field, his own blasters firing the bullet that put an end to their short lives. Sometimes they even ended the lives of his peers.

Perhaps he wasn’t a fan of most of the Enforcers’ tactics but he wouldn’t argue against the fact that they were necessary.

Barricade let out a huff as Ajax resigned to the facts and sat down, red optics burning. “What a lack of back strut that mecha has,” he hissed under his breath.

Jazz huffed. “Ajax knows better than to look for conflict where there’s none to be had, mech.”

The dark grey mech stiffened, disbelief written all over his faceplates. “Don’t tell me you’re actually agreeing with this slag?”

“Would there be a problem if I was?” Jazz chuckled, amused by the mech’s flaring ire.

Barricade grimaced, “Don’t patronize me.”

Both of them turned to look back to the front and they quickly focused upon realizing that Primus had switched to the daily roll call. Partners were being verbally assigned with the list being projected on the screen for easy recall, their designated cases written just beside them.

Jazz sighed upon noticing that his partner was already sitting next to him and judging by Barricade’s flaring EM field, he wasn’t particularly thrilled with the partnership.

A few words of warning were announced, a brief recital of the Enforcer code was led by Primus and then everyone was given permission to finally disperse.

Jazz rose to his feet slowly, stretching his arms up over his head and casting a glance at Barricade with a grin spread over his lips. “You ready, partner?”

“Temporary partner,” Barricade corrected, rising to his full height. There was a slight tilt upwards of his nose as he gazed down at Jazz. “Until this...case is finally closed.” His red optics flickered with recognition as he jerked his chin at the smaller mech. “How’s your processor, by the way?”

Jazz frowned. “My processor?”

“After the interrogation with you know what, you seemed...off. All of us assumed the telepath did something to you while you were in there, given the whole smashing your faceplates into the table and all.”

The blue-visored mech offered no physical cue of his discomfort but Barricade was well trained enough to notice how Jazz’s smile froze into place and how his optics looked at anything but him. It intrigued him. Jazz was normally so stoic, always ready with a quip to counteract whatever was thrown at him, so this was an interesting change of pace.

Jazz, however, seemed less inclined to cooperate with the line of questioning. Scoffing, he finally turned to face the larger mech and crossed over his chest.

“Nothing happened. It was a small processing glitch ‘cause I haven’t been recharging correctly but I went to see Primus and it’s been sorted out.”

Barricade replied, “oh, good. I hate to think my partner is anything but ready.”

“Careful,” Jazz said, brushing past him. “I’d hate for you to hurt yourself.” The small mech didn’t spare his partner a glance as he headed away but he could hear the strong, almost lumbering footsteps that indicated he needn’t waste his time doing so.

Jazz wandered up to the front of the room, ignoring the drones, and waited for his turn before pressing hid palm against the large monitor screen in the front. A small confirmation popped up on his HUD, which he quickly agreed to and a neural handshake later, he was downloading the entirety of the case file assigned to him.

“What’s the situation?” Barricade asked, hostility pushed to the side for the sake of professionalism.

Jazz sent him a condensed databurst of the file as he simultaneously. “Seven maulings in the central district of the third level,” he said quietly, leading the way out of the conference room. “At first, it was thought to be isolated incidents since turbofoxes seem to be pretty common in the area but...” he projected a few of the evidence photos holographically in his palm, “the injuries are too precise, too evenly done to be considered a wild animal.”

“So we’ve got a serial killer on our hands?”

Jazz pursed his lips for a moment. “Latest victim’s in a medically induced coma at the Polyhexian Medical Institute. I’d like to give ask a few more questions before jumping to conclusions.”

Barricade sighed, “That’s on the other side of the city.”

The smaller mech nodded, “Yeah, and we’ll get there before the end of the orn if we leave right now.” He put the images away and loudly straightened out a kink in his shoulder. “So, get your goodbyes in order, ‘Cade and we head out in twenty kliks.”

“Don’t call me that.”

Jazz didn’t answer. Instead, he transformed and made his escape down the hallway, tires screeching as he made a sharp turn and disappeared. Barricade took a few calming invents and rolled his optics, heading to make his own preparations for their upcoming trip in sordid silence.

~~~

“Dion. Janitor in an office complex. No registered bondmates but recent medical scans of his internals indicate that he’s been a carrier in the past but no sign of any creation’s been found in his living establishment. All in all, the mech was a societal outcast and he was just unfortunate enough to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Jazz nodded, staring at the medic seated on the opposite side of the desk with heavy scrutiny. His blue visor was dimmed in concentration, highlighting the cramped dimly lit office he found himself sequestered in with an eerie azure hue. “’Kay. What exactly were his injuries?”

The medic, a small femme with white and red markings crisscrossing her frame, sighed. She clasped her hands on top of the desk and shuttered her green optics a few times before replying. “Seventeen stab wounds in his arms legs and lower torso,” she began, voice monotone. “Most certainly done with a vibroblade given the level of cauterization around the areas of penetration; he was in a lot of pain but he wasn’t in danger of losing his fluids completely since no vital points seemed to be hit. After that, it looks like his armor was ripped off around his Sparkchamber using brute force; I found indentations of fingers in his protoform, like someone had pushed it aside to get at the hinges that keep armor in place.”

She paused, swallowing roughly. “Finally, it seemed that the assailant had a go at his Spark. I found...bite marks around the sentillico of his casing but it wasn’t marks I’d attribute to an animal or pests. They were made by...a mech.”

Barricade shifted from his position next to Jazz. “What makes you say that?”

The medic glanced at him, annoyance replacing the tired look in her optics. “We receive a variety of injuries in this facility. Most of them being junkies experiencing withdrawal from red halogen and other various narcotics. One of the most common symptoms is self-mutilation and I’ve seen enough mechs chew their own limbs off to know what it looks like.” She paused and shook her helm. “Dion was most certainly a victim of another mech. I can’t say who or what exactly, but it was no animal.”

Jazz’s lips twisted to one side. “When will he be stable enough to bring out of his coma?” Upon noticing the look of aghast on the femme’s face, he quickly added, “He’s our only lead in this investigation. Without his testimony, we’re back to nothing and whatever sunk their teeth into him is still gonna be out there. We don’t want what happened to Dion to happen to anyone else.”

He turned his palms upwards in an apologetic gesture. “I meant no disrespect, Jespa.”

Jespa’s noseplates twitched. “Thank you for the clarification, Enforcer. But I’m afraid you’re looking at a dead end if you expect Dion to give you all the answers you’re looking for.” She rose from her seat and walked over to the file cabinet situated next to her desk. Thumbing through the datapads, she pulled out the one she was looking for and placed it on the desk, lithe fingers pushing it across the surface to the two mechs sitting opposite of her.

Jazz was the one who grabbed it but didn’t turn it on immediately. “What’s this?”

Barricade gave the femme a distasteful look to back up his partner’s question.

Jespa replied, “You’re not the first mechs to come here looking for answers. The company that Dion works for hired a private investigator to look into his death and the mech came here asking the same questions as you two. I told him that Dion’s mental health couldn’t be verified and he offered up his services and put the Institute in contact with a mnemosurgeon from Praxus. My supervisor approved the procedure. Needless to say, we got a few tidbits of information from the process, all of it documented in that file you have there, and it all points to the same conclusion:

Dion’s as good as dead.”

Jazz hesitated for a moment, optics going to the blank screen in his hands. Something gnawed at his internals, a small trickle of uncertainty that seemed to be growing thicker and stronger with each passing nanoklik.

He turned to look at his partner, hoping for some mutual nod of understanding but all he got was a glower.

Barricade looked uneasy as well but his feelings stemmed more from his obvious discomfort with the medic’s claustrophobic office. He jerked his chin at the datapad, a silent terse urging demanding that the smaller mech look at the contents and be done with everything.

Jazz clenched his dentae and did just that, optics narrowing behind his visor. When the device booted up, there was only the option of selecting from three small video clips and an official report that had Jespa’s signature tailed to the end of the data moniker.

Morbid curiosity roused, Jazz pressed on the first video and immediately, a sharp static began to play, alternated by an eerie silence that immediately was replaced by the sound of running footsteps and heavy breathing.

 _“Oh slag! Oh slag, oh slag, oh slag--!”_ Dion’s voice, full of desperation and fear, filled the small room and Jazz stiffened as the white static on the screen lifted for the briefest of moments, allowing what appeared to be a silver floor to come into view with the mech’s large green hands curling into the metal as he seemed to scramble across it to get onto his feet.

A crash sounded and Dion swore, turning to look behind him but the static overtook the screen before anything could be seen and the video clip ended there.

Disappointed, Jazz played the other two videos and got almost the same results. The most they got was a shadow and glimpses of spilled Energon but other than that, nothing else.

Jespa didn’t seem surprised when both Enforcers glanced up to look at her and she leaned back in her chair, shaking her helm once more.

“The trauma that Dion has endured...is something this facility isn’t equipped to deal with, even if it was physically possible.” She paused. “You’re going to have to look elsewhere, I’m afraid.”

Barricade scoffed, “Great.”

Jazz ignored him and focused on Jespa, hands resting on top of the now powered off datapad. “That’s...unfortunate.”

“Quite.” Jespa said, voice soft. A light blinked on her arm, alerting her of something only she understood and she turned to look at it briefly before saying, “I have to go. Another patient’s in need of a checkup.”

Jazz nodded and rose from his seat, extending a hand to shake with the femme. “That’s fine. Thank you...for your help.”

Barricade said nothing.

In the end, they found themselves on the steps of the facility once more, staring up at the large silver alloyed building in disdain after having spent so long in there only to find it to be a dead end. Already the case was turning out to be a complicated one and Jazz was starting to relate more and more to Barricade’s sour mood.

“Damn Praxians.” The dark grey and white mech muttered, “Always butting into things that don’t concern them.”

Jazz glanced at his partner, lips pursed. “It wasn’t a total loss,” he reminded chastely. “At the very least we know that we’ve got a mech out there with a sweet tooth for spark casings and not a pack of wild animals as everybody’s fearing.” He touched down on the last step and gave their surroundings a quick look, eyeing the mechs heading to the Institute and the others milling around near the edge of the vehicular lane, waiting for an opportunity to transform and meld into the heavy traffic.

Barricade grimaced, though it was aimed more at the obvious traffic jam than Jazz’s words. “That’s sure to make everyone feel better.” He growled, engine thrumming deep in his frame. “Dammit. We’re not going to be able to get anywhere with this mess.”

Jazz sighed. “We can always call a shuttle.”

“And spend 300 shanix for a five klik ride? No, thank you.”

The blue visored mech opened his mouth to retort but a small beeping in his audioreceptor stopped him and he pressed his finger against it, amplifying the signal.

“You got Jazz.”

“Jazz.” It was Lieutenant Ajax. “Am I correct in assuming that you’re the one who’s been assigned the case of the maulings?”

“Yes, lieutenant.” At the last word, Barricade perked up with curiosity.

“Good. I need you and Barricade at the market center immediately.”

Jazz asked, “what’s up?”

A brief moment of pause, then, “unfortunately, it would appear that there has been another victim.”

 

~~~

Energon was not sweet.

In its purest refined form, the precious energy source held little to no taste, with only the prickle of charge on one’s glossa when it was consumed being the only thing that made it popular enough to consume orally as a beverage. It didn’t burn your throat like High Grade does as it goes down and there’s no cooling buzz like there is with coolant.

It’s just necessary.

That’s why bots always mix in various metals and minerals when they drink it, to give it flavor and make it enjoyable. It alters the taste but the same bland smell is always present, unchanged.

But there’s something to be said about freshly spilled Energon. Medics say it has something to do with the molecular interaction between the sentio metallico of vital organs and the chemical composition of the precious blue energy source. Bonds are broken, rearranged, until it turns a dark pink hue...and when it’s forcefully extracted from a living bot’s body, to be splattered on the walls and floor like some form of interpretive art, it carries an unsettling smell.

It’s sweet. Cloying on one’s glossa, thick and burning with each inhalation of the tainted air like a cheap candied imitation.

Jazz had always hated the smell of spilled Energon; he knew it had plenty to do with the trauma he suffered as a youngling with the murder of his creator but all emotional dealings aside, the black and white mech had never been a fan of anything sweet. But when he realized that it was a sadly common thing in his line of work, he’d simply learned to endure.

He focused on the carnage that usually accompanied the smell, letting his processor delve into connecting the clues together until some viable explanation came his way. With time, the smell was pushed to the back of his mind and all was right.

But this time was different.

Jazz had seen a lot of violence during his time as an Enforcer. He’d seen fields full of decapitated heads, broken rooms with gore dripping off the walls like fresh coats of paint. Once, he’d seen a mech with their own vitals in their arms, optics full of raw primal fear as they begged him to offer help he simply couldn’t.

The scene in the small vendor stall was no different in terms of carnage but there was something about it that made Jazz’s plating crawl with unease as he stepped through the holographic police tape and showed his identification to the security mechs keeping the morbidly curious bystanders at a respectable distance.

The sickly sweet smell of Energon assaulted him immediately, making his nose wrinkle with obvious distaste. Broken glass figurines lay in pieces on the floor, a few sporting sprays of the precious pink fluid, and Jazz did his best to navigate through the mess of ruined merchandise until he was face to face with the familiar frame of the lieutenant.

Ajax dipped his helm in greeting, repeating the gesture when Barricade pulled up a few seconds later. “Jazz. Barricade.”

“What’s the situation?” Jazz asked, craning his neck to see past his superior. He could see a couple bots milling around the entrance to the walled in stall, but they obscured his view.

“We haven’t been able to figure it out completely.” Ajax sighed. “We’ve got a few witnesses telling conflicting stories but the overall consensus is that a customer attacked our victim after a...disagreement on the pricing of a good.” A slight quirk of the corner of the mech’s mouth indicated he didn’t quite believe the simplicity of the explanation. “But given the state of the victim, it’s quite obvious pricing had little to do with it.”

The lieutenant led them to the stall, ordering the two bots standing guard. They turned around to regard the new arrivals and that was when Jazz noticed the small LED on the side of their helms, pulsing at gradual intervals. Their smiles were small, forced, and it took all of Jazz’s efforts not to react. Barricade’s engine gave a low deep growl.

Ajax noticed the tension and placed a placating hand in the air between the new arrivals and the drones. His optics turned to the two nonsentients. “TX40, TC50. Enforcers Jazz and Barricade. They have complete authorization to investigate and interact with the crime scene.”

“Understood,” the darker colored one of the drones answered, dipping his helm. With haunting synchrony, they moved to the side and allowed the three mechs to enter the small stall. Jazz spared them no glance, fully focused on the macabre scene in front of him.

It was dark, sparsely lit once their frames covered the entrance but the dimming glow of Energon allowed a good view of what happened. The alloy walls were pristine, no scratch marks, no visible damage, but there were sprays of life fluids dried onto the metal, dull and near colorless. Propped up on the far wall, lay the victim.

He was a mess, limbs ripped and hanging by mere wires, faceplates bashed in so much he was unrecognizable and his torso splayed open wide. Jazz leaned forward and saw the glimmer of a shattered glass casing, the inside empty of life.

There were no teeth marks but the level of violence was on par with that of the unidentified suspect Barricade and himself were chasing after.

Glancing up at Ajax, Jazz said, “Do we have a time of death?”

“Approximately twenty-three joors.” The lieutenant replied, arms crossing over his chest. “Despite the brutality, forensics indicate that the mech was tortured while he was alive and he offlined from the loss of Energon; the fatal damage around his Spark casing was done post mortem.”

“Odd.” Barricade intoned, lips pursed as he observed from Jazz’s side. “Seems like a lot of effort for such a stupid dispute.” His red optics narrowed. “You said there were witnesses, though. What’s their involvement?”

“What do you mean?”

Barricade elaborated. “The mech was tortured in the middle of a busy market with dozens of vendors and customers in the vicinity. Nobody stepped in to help but somebody had to had seen something. Who notified the authorities?”

Ajax raised an optic ridge. “A mech named Pion. He was the first one to hear the victim’s screams and saw glimpses of the struggle.” He sighed, regret in the note. “But poor mech must’ve seen something gruesome because he’s in shock and not talking much.”

Barricade smiled without any humor, “Oh, really? Let me talk to him.”

Before Ajax could reject the offer, Jazz raised a placating hand in the air. Both mechs turned to look at him, anticipation and frustration on their respective faces. “Let me.”

“You?” Barricade echoed.

“Yes,” Jazz said, not looking back at his partner. “Interrogation is my specialty. Interpersonal communications, crowd control, that kind of thing. I’m sure I can get the mech to say something without resorting to unnecessary scare tactics.”

For a moment, Barricade looked like he wanted argue but something in Jazz’s face made him reel back and he shrugged, hands rising and falling in surrender. “Fine,” he said. “You do that.”

Ajax said nothing as he nodded and led Jazz away from the scene and down the little empty rows of stalls, where a few other drones were scouring for more clues. In the end, they arrived at the one at the edge and inside was a thin lanky mech sitting on a broken crate, hunched over with his arms wrapped around his torso and optics staring listlessly at the floor.     

Another mech Jazz didn’t recognize was beside him, comforting from a distance. At the sound of their arrival, both of their helms shot up and the mech in question looked momentarily relieved when his gaze landed on Ajax.

He opened his mouth to say something but his optics turned to look at Jazz for the briefest of moments and then it happened.

One moment, he was frozen in relief, then he was falling backwards over the crate, high pitched screams escaping his vocalizer as his back slammed against the wall and he all but melded into the silver metal.

Immediately, Ajax and Jazz switched their body language, raising their hands and hunching their shoulders slightly in a display of yielding. The other mech backed away, looking to the Enforcers for assistance.

“You’re okay!” Ajax said soothingly, kneeling down on one knee. “You’re perfectly fine, Pion. See, we’re Enforcers.”

Pion clamped his mouth shut, scream muffled in his throat, and pointed a shaking finger to the mech standing behind the lieutenant.

Ajax turned to look at Jazz, confusion lingering between them, before he turned to look at the whimpering mech. “What, him? That’s Jazz. He’s an Enforcer too.”

The mech let out a warble of static and wrapped his arms even tighter around himself. “Not him, not him.”

Jazz, sensing that his presence was the cause of alarm, took a few measured steps back. With each new inch of distance between them, Pion seemed to relax and it took Jazz stepping to the side and out of sight for the mech to finally calm down. It was an inconvenience but Jazz’s audials were state of the art and with a few adjustments, he was hearing the conversation inside the stall without much issue.

“That mech, who was he?” Pion’s voice shook, static warbling every note.

Ajax replied, “An Enforcer.”

Pion whimpered. “Then why...?” He trailed off, muttering and the other mech stepped in to murmur words of comfort.

“Why what?” Ajax asked softly, the sound of shifting gears indicating that he was rising to his feet.

A pause, then Pion said. “He looked like him.”

That feeling of anxiety was back, pricking at the back of Jazz’s neck and making his vitals twist and turn. “Like who?”

“The monster...”

“Monster?”

“Y-yes. The one who killed Onyx...he was just like him. But...different.”

Jazz tensed.

“Different, how?” Ajax pressed gently.

“He was bigger. Red...and white. And as he tore into...Onyx...he—“ a pause. “He turned to look at me and he grinned. He _grinned_.”

Something fell on the floor and Ajax could be heard offering gentle murmurs of consolation. But Pion didn’t stop there. “Is there any more you can tell us?”

“He’s a monster. A monster.” Pion gasped. “And his optics...he doesn’t have any optics?”

“No optics?”

Pion hesitated. “No...yes. I couldn’t see them. He had something covering his optics...like the mech! But it wasn’t blue.”

“What color was it.”

“Orange...” Pion breathed immediately. “It was orange.”

It took about fifty kliks for Ajax to finally get enough information about the subject in question without throwing Pion into another panic. In the end, he offered the mech his thanks and offered his commlink in the event that the case called for his presence once more. He subspaced the tiny datapad where he wrote his notes and made his way outside, fully prepared to give Jazz the rundown.

But when he emerged, there was nobody there.

He frowned and sent a databurst via the mech’s commlink but got no response.

Making his way back to the crime scene, he located Barricade and asked about the missing black and white mech.

Barricade frowned. “What?”

“Jazz, do you know where he is?”

“Wasn’t he with you?”

“Yes, but he had to step away for a moment and I can’t find him anywhere. He’s not responding to any of my summons.”

Barricade pondered for a moment, head swiveling to and fro. “Can’t help you out there, sir.” He looked like he wanted to say more but instead shut his mouth and continued with his work. Ajax glanced round once more, grumbled and made do with what he had.

~~~

In Praxus, there was a mech who was a well-trained Enforcer with a penchant for being a taciturn and uptight disciplinarian. Few mechs ever got to see anything but a stern façade and received nothing less than scathing words.

But he was a normal mech like any other.

He got home everyday after his shift was up, commlink on and ready for any emergencies, and drank Energon while listening to old case recordings until recharge came.

Once in a while he received company. And it just so happened that today would be one of those days when his front door was being pounded upon frantically and when he went to open it, a familiar white and black frame was standing there, huffing and puffing like he’d run across the planet with an odd glimmer in his visor.

“Jazz. What are--?” His words were lost as the mech reached up to grab onto the collar flaring of his armor, pulled, and pressed their mouth together, hands groping and legs precariously balancing as he shut the door with the heel of his foot. He smelled of Energon and burned oil, but his mouth tasted of nothing but confusion and anxiety.

It took some effort to pull himself away from the eager black and white mech but he managed, doorwings on his back raised in slight indignation.

“Prowler.” Jazz said, slightly breathless. “Why’d you stop?”

Prowl grimaced. “Because I know you well enough to know when you’re looking for a quick frag to forget something.” He stepped back but extended a hand, offering support. “You need to talk.”

“I don’t.” Jazz replied stubbornly. “I want you to bend me over your desk like last time and frag me until I see nothing but stars.”

Normally such words would have made Prowl’s plating warm with anticipation but the taste of fear he’d caught during their kiss kept him grounded and he shook his helm. Grabbing the other mech’s hand, he led them to the living room and sat them down on the ironically named love seat before fixing the mech with an infamous stern glare.

“Now,” he said, “what exactly is the matter?”

 

\---

 

Jazz knew he shouldn’t have lied. It was stupid, irrational, but he’d still done it anyways.

Prowl hadn’t bought his sob story of a heavy workload and difficult cases at all but he hadn’t pushed, hadn’t prodded and in the end, he’d grown complacent enough to have a brief tumble in the berth that ended with him offline.

Jazz had gazed adoringly at his occasional berth partner before making his escape from the clean almost sterile abode, a mesh cloth being the only thing he used to wipe the evidence of his tryst. A small part of his Spark longed to remain in Praxus, to wake up next to Prowl and maybe make something of that thing between them.

But he couldn’t.

_Wouldn’t?_

Part of the reason why not was due to his own stubborn nature. Interfacing was one thing, relationships were another. But the other was the fact that the feeling in his vitals was stronger than ever and it just seemed wrong to pull Prowl into whatever slag Jazz had unwillingly gotten himself into.

His own house was smaller, more rundown and smelled of stale oil but Jazz didn’t care. He threw himself onto his unkempt berth and went into a fitful recharge, confused and anxious as ever.

Hoping that maybe, just maybe, the next orn would offer the answers he was desperately wishing for.


End file.
